My Husband Exiled Me to the Ranch of My Dreams novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Boots

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, three cars came up the lane in a line.

I stood on the porch, which now had all its boards, with a dish towel in my hand.

Jed leaned on the new rail beside me and did not say a word.

Sierra got out of the first car with her husband.

Tanner got out of the second, and the oldest boy climbed out of the passenger side, taller than I remembered, in a coat that was too thin for Wyoming.

The youngest got out of the third and ran.

I caught her.

The others came more slowly, across the frozen yard.

They stopped at the foot of the steps in a row, as they had on Labor Day, and for a second I saw it again: the lawn, the movers, the four of them in the sun.

Then Sierra took one step forward.

"Can we come up?"

"You can come up."

"We're not here to be forgiven," she said. Her voice shook but held. "I want to say that first. We're not asking for it."

"Good."

"We came to work."

"Then you'll want boots."

I handed them out of the mudroom, my grandfather's old pairs, the rubber ones, and the oldest boy put his on wrong foot first and swore.

Tanner laughed, and nobody stopped him.

Jed took them to the barn and put pitchforks in their hands.

I watched through the kitchen window as Sierra, in her good wool coat, lifted her first forkful of hay and sneezed.

The oldest boy came back to the house alone an hour later, with straw in his hair.

He stood in the kitchen door and could not seem to start.

"I'm the one you never put on a list," he said finally. "You taped Sierra's wedding planner into a folder. You got Tanner's scholarship. You hand-wrote the youngest's allergy card. I got a card with money in it on my birthday."

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